ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – When the bulldozer smacked a 40-foot-tall cottonwood tree, the tree first wavered and wobbled. Then, a loud crack rang out, and the tree toppled, its bright green leaves crushed as they glistened in the sunlight. This scene was repeated more than a dozen times in mid-October, as the Albuquerque city government started […]
Traffic flow 1, trees 0
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
Rare native fish found in Utah, then poisoned by mistake
A project launched by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources to protect a recently discovered population of rare native trout killed almost every fish in the stream instead. The fish, located in Parley’s Creek close to Salt Lake City, were believed to be pure Bonneville cutthroat trout, one of only two varieties of trout native […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
Utility found guilty of polluting a wilderness
Tourists noticed it first. A thin brown haze hung in the air like a nylon stocking obscuring the view of the Mount Zirkel Wilderness Area in northwest Colorado. Alerted by complaints, the Forest Service set up cameras at the Storm Peak Weather Lab on top of the Steamboat ski area. The cameras took pictures three […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
Voters say yes to elk, no to takings, jets
In state and local elections Nov. 7, environmental initiatives followed the law of the pocketbook: Measures that would have cost taxpayers money usually failed. Although fiscal conservatism spelled defeat for slow-growth initiatives in Colorado and Utah, it also contributed to a major victory for environmentalists in Washington state, where voters defeated Referendum 48 – the […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
Dear Friends
Hello, hello? We’re still not used to the sudden disappearance of staffers at the Bureau of Land Management or Forest Service. Humans all over the West once answered our annoying and time-consuming questions; now recordings announce: “Sorry, due to a lack of budget appropriations, this office is closed.” Then a Denver Post story Nov. 16 […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
Jury tackles a question of ethics in Montana
BILLINGS, Mont. – The three-day trial here last month of a man accused of shooting an endangered wolf ran like a morality play about the new American West and small-town Montana culture. This is a place where men enjoy their guns, hunting, beer and trucks, but as the accused, Chad McKittrick, soon discovered, there are […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
Agency leaders need to come out swinging
With a muffled thump, a small bomb ripped through Forest Service offices in Carson City, Nev., in late March, damaging walls and computer equipment. The damages were not just physical; for the men and women whose daily routines were shattered, the detonation had understandable psychological ramifications. There were political reverberations, too: Some public-land managers who […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
Heard Around the West
Rep. James V. Hansen of Utah spent 24 happy years – he didn’t know how happy – in the U.S. Congress as a minority member. Then, a year ago, Republicans won the House, and Hansen became chairman of a subcommittee. With the appearance of power came trouble. His bill to sell Forest Service mountainsides to […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
Local land-use plan sabotaged by state
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. – At night the lights of Steamboat Springs rise up from the Yampa River Valley by the thousands, advancing east toward Mount Werner like a small army laying siege to the ski lifts. At the eastern edge of town they end abruptly, running up against the dark mass of Emerald Mountain. The […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
Trust in the Land
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Saving the ranch. In the scramble to preserve Western open space, land trusts have taken the lead. “I see a lot of people looking at land trusts as a real bridge between environmentalists and landowners,” says Jean Hocker, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Land […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
Conservation group ropes in a working ranch
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Saving the ranch. For years The Nature Conservancy has taken a direct route in its quest to protect native plants and animals: buying land and prohibiting most human activities on it. That strategy has paid big dividends in the West. In the 10 Western […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
Rancher’s new cash crop will be scenery
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Saving the ranch. Private conservation efforts in places such as the Elk River Valley may be able to preserve the look of the land. But if ranchers become tenants on property owned by wealthy people from somewhere else, what happens to the culture? “There’s […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
John Fetcher
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Saving the ranch. John Fetcher started his working life as an engineer in Philadelphia before buying a ranch with his brother in the Elk River Valley in 1949. In the 1950s he and three partners began developing the Steamboat Ski Area, which they sold […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
Saving the ranch
Can private conservation stave off ski-town sprawl?
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
Preserving open spaces
PRESERVING OPEN SPACES Colorado Open Lands works to preserve large stretches of undeveloped land across the state. So it’s only fitting that the nonprofit group’s quarterly newsletter, which includes photos and descriptions of recently completed projects, is laid out on big, airy pages. The group’s projects, detailed in past issues of Landscape, include acquisition of […]
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
Yearning for balance
YEARNING FOR BALANCE Americans find simplicity complicated. According to a recent survey conducted for the Merck Family Fund, a foundation that promotes environmental sustainability, the majority of people questioned said they want to simplify their lives, spend more time with loved ones and consume less. But they have found it’s easier said than done. Although […]
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
The Snake runs through it
THE SNAKE RUNS THROUGH IT Lewiston and Idaho Falls stand like bookends at either end of the Snake River’s path through Idaho. Those two ends will converge Nov. 28-29 in Boise, Idaho, at Snake: the River Between Us, a conference about the future of Idaho’s largest river. The meeting grows out of a series of […]
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
Helping hand isn’t
Helping hand isn’t The best way to help wildlife live through a bitter winter is to leave them alone, says the Montana-based Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Free food can accustom deer and elk to human hand-outs and erode instincts that protect the animals, says the group. If the ration suddenly disappears, the animals may descend […]
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
Untangling Washington
UNTANGLING WASHINGTON When the 1994 Congress cut funding for its research groups, the Environmental and Energy Study Conference didn’t die, it reorganized as the for-profit Congressional Green Sheets. As a part of Congress, the conference had provided information about House and Senate actions on environmental issues. With the same staff and its new name, Green […]
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
Defending the desert
Defending the desert In the minds of far too many people, says former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, the Southwest’s public lands are a wasteland. “Indestructible because there is nothing to destroy; unworthy of protection.” Now, a new handbook by the Environmental Defense Fund provides activists and educators with the tools to tackle this myth. Defending […]